Sandra, Jutta, you are two of the three founders of a company
called Changing Environments.
What does the company do?
Changing Environments updates the city
for the mobile generation.
More than half of the world's population
is moving toward cities, and our transportation,
our energy systems, our public spaces, are really overwhelmed.
And Changing Environments is addressing
a lot of needs that are happening now
with everyone moving to the city and living
a very urban and mobile lifestyle-- so
with your cellphone always in your pocket,
always connected to the internet,
connected to each other and to the city.
We are designing smart urban furniture
that connects us to the urban realm.
Our first product is Soofa.
It's a solar-powered bench that can charge people's devices
outside-- mobile phones, tablets.
At the same time, it hosts an array of sensors inside,
so it collects environmental data.
Right now we are tracking how much energy
we are collecting throughout a day, throughout a week.
And how much people are charging,
when they're charging, for how long they are charging.
And at the same time, we are already
testing a few additional sensors around noise and air pollution
tracking.
How did you two meet?
Actually, we met here in Boston through a friend.
At the time, I was designing the interior design
for the new co-working space, as well as the furniture.
And Sandra was working on a concept, connected tables.
And we were looking into integrating
some of that technology, perhaps, in the workspace.
That's how we started talking talking.
And there was a lot of synergy there.
So once a key nucleus was formed,
you began developing your product concept for the Soofa.
Tell us about this process.
The concept started way back when
I was taking a class at MIT, thinking
about how to foster interactions in hotel lobbies.
And I was doing some research, and what
really struck me was the power of power.
So people were huddling around power outlets
within those hotel lobbies, and I
was fascinated by how this could create social interactions.
And so together with a team, we built a interactive table
where people were brought together through power.
And I actually met Paul English, and he was saying, well,
you really need to think about rapid deployment.
Like how are you going to get your product out there?
And so we were thinking together about,
maybe it should be just a slat.
So you go to a seating area, like a bench,
and you can go in the urban environment
and put a slat there and have little cords coming
where you can plug into that slat.
So basically, we're looking into how can we
fit all the technology into a slat that
could be somewhat universal?
And so we have solar panels on the top,
and we have outlets on the sides coming down.
And so the idea here was that we could actually
retrofit existing benches.
At the simplest level, I can go find a beautiful Soofa bench
somewhere in a beautiful city and get my phone charged up,
right?
Yeah, that's correct.
In fact, what we're trying to do is, like,
we want to get people out from behind.
With the digital devices, now they are very sort of isolated.
They're spending more time inside being connected.
We want to pull them out, back into the city,
where they actually can connect, with their mobile devices,
in the physical environment with other people.
That's great.
Now Sandra.
you talked about cities being more connected
and being more responsive.
Why is that important?
Well, I mean, right now, more than half
of the world's population moved to cities, right?
And cities are exciting.
Jutta, for example, she lived in London and Shanghai.
I lived in Barcelona and Paris.
We're both here in Boston now.
And we're noticing cities being more and more crowded, right?
So people are coming into the city.
We have transportation systems that
are overwhelmed by the amount of people going in,
day and night, and the same with public spaces.
And what becomes more and more noticeable
is that we're moving a lot within those cities
because they are so crowded.
And we need these small little oases within the city
where we can come to rest, where we can charge up
and our devices can charge up.
And so I think we really need to think
about not only smart and connected cities,
but also social cities.
Cities where we have time to relax and sit down.
The new generation actually drives a lot less.
They use much more public transportation.
But they also like to walk and bike.
So they're out in the environment
much more, rather than driving in their very confined space,
where previously they were able to charge.
So that's another trend that we are seeing.
So it sounds like at its heart, your mission
is to reimagine what a city could be.
We're imagining how the city could
be from a very user-centric point of view.
It actually addresses a very urgent need today.